Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills

in Petroleum Engineering

Prepared by:Dr. Nader Nabhani

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

It is generally expected that besides the solid theoretical knowledge(hard skill) included in the basic sciences and engineering sciences, a good engineer should acquire additional relevant non-technical or soft skill.

This balance is what gives one graduate competitive edge over another.

A literature survey on soft skill reveals that there is no singular definition of the set of skills. Some refer to them as “process skills”, “generic skills” and “transferable skills”.

For many Iranian engineering students, it is important to adequate soft skills, particularly communication skill since the international language of petroleum industry is English.

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

Work Methodology

The object of this work was to obtain responses from students on how important soft skills are in petroleum industry.

The data collection was based on a questioner containing some user-friendly multiple-choice questions, with few open-ended ones.

50 students from Iranian Petroleum University answered the questions

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

Result

The majority of students(40) were positive about the importance of soft-skills by agreeing with the statement: “soft-skills are equally important to hard-skills in petroleum engineering

The result showed a significant gap between what universities offer and what students demand.

Discussion

Here, we intend to review and discuss some of the questions and the answers given to them to show how the above result was concluded.

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

The students mentioned the importance of being team player and being able to market themselves and their ideas; by answering the question” successful engineers must be team players.

The majority of students responded negatively when answering the question on how they are prepared for work.

They revealed the fact that they might not have adequate and necessary skills when they graduate since the university and industry are different in many ways.

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

Some responses pointed the lack of adequate in-service training where there are no opportunities to apply what has been learned since the courses are only an introduction to what they do in the work place.

The remaining responses show that students are aware of the reality that they fairly might have necessary required skills needed at the industry.

They also mentioned that each working environment needs its own particular engineering practices that can only be obtained when working in that specific work-place.

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

The responses to the question “soft-skills like communication skills are downplayed by engineering programs while technical skills are over-emphasized” showed that they are agree with this statement and know the importance of soft-skills.

The remaining responses were in agreement with the idea that soft-skills are less important than hard-skills.

These answers echo the traditional view that one set of skills are more important that others and they are not dependent to each other.

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

Important Soft Skills Identified

The following factors are the most important soft-skills that students though they need in order to become a successful in work places:

Communication skill

Project management

skill

Presentation skill

Creativity

Problem-solving skill

Team-work skill

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

Conclusion

This work provides a valuable insight on the importance of development of technical skills as well as soft-skills and their great relation in the students attitudes toward this issues.

Many student expressed dissatisfaction with industry expectations with their engineering program that they may not use what they have learned.

It is clear that students require real work experiences to help them acquire more and develop requesting skills in preparation for the world of work which ensures the success of Iranian oil industry with competent graduates.

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Perceptions and Attitudes on Soft Skills in Petroleum Engineering

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